By John Krogh

IT WAS ONLY A FEW YEARS AGO WHEN COMPUTERS BECAME POWERFUL enough to run a slew of soft synths and effects at the same time as lots of audio tracks. Even with the most powerful machines, though, musicians and composers could quickly reach the limits of their systems—especially if many sample-based instruments were involved—and some still do. For many, the solution was to dedicate one or more computers as “virtual racks” (instrument hosts) that fed audio to the main DAW computer over a multichannel connection such as ADAT lightpipe. This approach was (and is) popular among power users. Unfortunately, configuring such a setup requires multiple MIDI and audio interfaces, which adds cost and complexity.

Overview

Fast forward to Vienna Ensemble Pro. Now at version 5, VEP provides an elegant solution for multiple computers. You can also run VEP on the same machine as your DAW, but I’m getting ahead of myself. The big deal is that VEP lets you interconnect your DAW and instrument- dedicated computers via Ethernet, with audio and MIDI data shuttled over inexpensive Cat-5 cables. While that might not seem revolutionary for the weekend warrior, it’s huge for musicians who use lots of RAM- and CPUintensive instruments.

VEP is made up of three pieces of software: server, plug-in, and host. The host can run standalone or in tandem with a DAW, and it’s from VEP’s host that instruments and effects can be loaded and configured for multitimbral use.

To use VEP with a DAW, first launch the server. Then, from within the DAW, load an instance of the plug-in, which accesses the server. Multiple instances of the host can be loaded into the server, so you can create separate instances for each section of the orchestra, with strings in one, percussion in another, and so on. I was pleasantly surprised to find that VEP is virtually plug-and-play and routing is no more complicated than working in any other sequencer.

Multitimbral instrument templates can include a mix of VSL’s own instruments and thirdparty soft synths (as illustrated in the screen shot), and here VEP offers some thoughtful features such as mixer channel color-coding and the ability to merge sounds from different instrument templates into a new template.

The server is available in 32- and 64-bit versions, intended for use with 32- and 64-bit plug-ins. That means it’s possible to use 64-bit plug-ins alongside 32-bit DAWs such as Pro Tools. That’s significant because 32-bit software is capable of addressing a maximum of only 4GB of RAM, and with sample-based instruments loaded into a 32-bit DAW (as opposed to VEP), a computer can quickly run out of RAM. Of course, you can also use legacy 32-bit plug-ins with newer 64-bit DAWs.

New Features

Version 5 adds several big-ticket features, chief of which is the ability to automate VEP’s plug-in parameters from your DAW. Configuring parameter automation is mostly straightforward: Choose an arbitrary parameter number from within VEP (unfortunately there’s no way to name the parameters), then choose the destination (either manually or by using VEP’s learn function), and you’re good to go. Logic users have to go through a few extra steps and are required to use VEP’s Event Input plug-in to handle automation, otherwise audio glitches may occur when rendering instrument tracks as audio. That aside, I’m happy to finally be able to tweak synth settings using my DAW’s automation.

VEP now features an Audio Input plug-in, which lets you bus audio out from your DAW to an input bus in VEP’s host software so you can use it as a virtual effects rack. It’s an interesting concept, but there isn’t much benefit in this old school workflow unless you absolutely have to use a certain plug-in that’s not supported by your DAW. That said, a lot of Pro Tools users have been enthusiastic about this feature in various online forums, so it could be a much bigger deal for legacy PT users who are frustrated by the aging RTAS format. (VEP supports the VST and AudioUnit formats.)

Pro Performance

I’ve been using VEP since it was freeware that could handle only MIDI over Ethernet. Since then, it has evolved into a truly professional solution to an important niche-market problem. At the risk of sounding like a gushing shill, here’s a short list of what I love about VEP. Th e Preserve feature will keep everything loaded into the servers and hosts while you close and open different sessions—no more waiting for sounds to load when switching between cues or related projects. The plug-in remembers everything about the server and host configurations, and that gets saved along with your DAW session, so you never have to worry about saving separate multitimbral presets.

Plug-in user interfaces can be detached from VEP, so you can tweak them in real time just as if you’d opened the instrument in your DAW. It’s now possible to start and stop your DAW transport when VEP is currently selected—no more jockeying back and forth between the two programs to make changes and hear the results. Recognizing computers on a network, streaming audio, sync . . . it all simply works.

Conclusions

Vienna Ensemble Pro may not appeal to hobbyists or keyboard players whose studio projects stick to pop and rock instrumentation, but for composers who frequently run demanding sessions, VEP is an absolute godsend. While computer technology may advance to the point where we’ll never need more than a single machine, we’re not there yet. There’s a need for this kind of product, and since VEP is the best in its class, it wins our Key Buy award.

Snap Judgment

PROS Powerful mixing features. Supports 32- and 64-bit software. Includes three licenses (more can be purchased). Runs on older PowerPC-based Macs. One purchase includes three licenses for installing on multiple computers.

CONS Requires e-Licenser dongle ($29) for each machine. Configuring parameter automation is still somewhat fiddly.

Bottom Line

The best instrument hosting solution for squeezing every bit of performance out of multicomputer composing setups.

$280 list | approx. $260 street vsl.co.at | ilio.com